NEWSWATCH URTECH FACILITY COMPLETES AS9100D CERTIFICATION
URtech Manufacturing Inc., a North American provider of end-to-end Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS), has announced the certification of its Canadian facility’s Quality Management System to AS9100D. With this milestone, together with its ISO9001 and ISO13485 certifications and ITAR registration, URtech’s facility in Burlington ON has the appropriate, consensus-driven quality benchmarks to serve the aviation, space and defense industries. “We have enhanced our QMS (quality management system) by integrating key process requirements for our defense, aerospace and avionics customers with our MES (manufacturing execution system),” stated Michael Wallace, VP of business development & customer programs. “This allows us to efficiently provide component traceability, assembly traceability, FAI reporting and other critical device record keeping activities for these mission critical accounts.” AS9100 is an aerospace standard based on the ISO 9001 quality system requirements, adding more stringent requirements specific to the aviation, space and defense industries. The standard takes the requirements of ISO 9001 and supplements them with additional quality system requirements, which are established by the aerospace industry in order to satisfy DND, DOD, NASA and FAA quality requirements.
URtech’s CEM facility in Burlington ON has achieved AS9100D quality certification.
INTERNET OF THINGS
IOT REFERENCE PLATFORM SOLVES COMMON ENGINEERING ROADBLOCKS
Three leaders in Internet of Things (IoT) design and solutions have come together to deliver an all-inone, comprehensive IoT Reference Platform. IoT design engineering firm, Connected Development, partnered with cloud-based IoT solutions firm, Kopis, and cellular connectivity and subscription platform, Zipit, on this platform that is aimed to help customers with size, power, and cost constrained IoT applications accelerate time to market. The feature-rich IoT Reference Platform offers pre-certified, detailed schematics, including Silicon Labs’ 6
Three IoT centric firms pooled their expertise to formulate a reference platform aimed at helping users speed time to market with designs.
ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY / October 2021
BG21 Bluetooth System on Chip (SoC); Telit’s ME310 LTE CAT-M1/ NB-IoT cellular modem (AT&T and Verizon); and an array of proven and pre-tested cloud service SDKs, drivers, and sensors. This powerful combination of pre-tested hardware and software building blocks allows customers to rapidly prototype their unique application, while benefitting from a cost-effective and seamless transition to volume manufacturing. “With an engineering team averaging 25 years of experience in the industry, we understand the pain points of IoT product development,” said Gregor Bleimann,VP & GM at Connected Development. “We created the blueprints, initiated the testing, and integrated the leading software to help developers take off on the ground running.” The customizable IoT design platform is an ultra-low-power consumption design–offering integrated security features and extensive cellular connectivity for applications like industrial IoT, asset tracking, sensor monitoring and reporting, remote asset control, motion detection and reporting, and battery-operated IoT devices.
others are likely further out on the horizon. As a result, no unanimous description emerged of a typical mobile device in 2026. The top-five disruptive features most anticipated, and ranked in order, by respondents are: self-charging; holographic or projection displays; fully recyclable; environment-proof, such as dust- or waterproof; and no-break displays. Also on the list are foldable devices, pop-up cameras, health biosensors, rollable devices and separation of device and display.Time will tell which features attain enough practical applications, market momentum and customer traction to become standardized in five years, if ever. According to the survey, form factors (e.g., screen size, shape, etc.) also will evolve over the next five years. While 90% of those polled expect mobile devices to take on different form factors, there wasn’t consensus on whether they would be smaller, larger or different altogether. Nearly two-thirds believe demand for novel wearables will grow, including smart clothing (40%), glasses (33%), earpieces (29%) and watches (29%). Typical consumers will likely have more specialized devices by 2026, according to two-thirds of those polled. Still, 64% believe smartphones with integrated capabilities will minimize or replace the need for tablets.
WIRELESS
WIRELESS POWER CONSORTIUM AWAITS QI V1.3 STANDARD
TheWireless Power Consortium (WPC) Inc., a global standard development CONNECTIVITY body for wireless power, announced the release of Qi v1.3, the latest version SURVEY FINDINGS of its Qi specification for smartphones REVEAL ‘THE FUTURE OF and small mobile devices. As demand MOBILE DEVICES’ for faster charging of smartphones and Molex, a leading global connectivity small mobile devices accelerates, Qi supplier, unveiled the results of its v1.3 adds features and updates that survey polling manufacturing stake- make it easier for WPC’s member comholders to identify the top trends and panies to develop products that are safe technologies shaping the future of to use at higher power levels. Qi v1.3 mobile devices. Survey findings reveal introduces product authentication as continued evolution of mobile-device a new safety feature, improvements in form factors, disruptive features and the compliance testing procedures that innovations that will impact smart- make it easier to develop interoperable phones, smart wearables and other and safer products. “With more than 100 new Qi prodmobile devices manufactured in 2026. Survey participants were asked ucts certified every month, it’s importa series of questions to help inform ant to make it easier to develop wireless a depiction of typical smartphones charging products that are safe at high and mobile devices in 2026. While power levels and easy to use,” said responses identified various features, Menno Treffers, executive director and some of which are available already, CEO atWPC. “These new features and EPT.CA
Photo: ICSense; Adoe Images
CONTRACT MANUFACTURING
